I was wrong. This year's exclusives from LEGO are actually exclusive. Or, at the very least, very difficult to come by.

First up as you can see is the Darth Maul minifigure. He's packaged similar to white Boba Fett, Chrome Vader, etc, before him, so chances are he'll be available through some other means later in the year. Possibly as a [email protected] exclusive.

The next exclusives truly are exclusives. They are Iron Man and Bucky Barnes Captain America. The Iron Man is different in that the head is a printed minifig head piece, whereas the regular release figure will have a helmet with a flip up visor. This figure was specially made as a promo minifig like the Dark Knight version of Batman and the Green Lantern figures before it. Bucky Barnes Captain America was, if I recall correctly, produced while the script for the Avengers movie was being finalized. It was unknown if Bucky Barnes would play the role or if it would be Steve Rogers, so when it was determined that Steve Rogers would play the role of Cap, the Bucky Barnes version of the minifig was shelved. Until now.

Disclaimer: I'm a little under the influence as I post this, so the exact details of the origin of this special Cap figure may not be 100% factually correct, but that's about as close as I can get it.

I'm sure you're happy to have these figures, but not sure what Lego is thinking keeping these away from the rest of us, with no apparent plan to release. Can't stress enough how rude that is on Lego's part.

Oh, and this Ironman is a so much better than the bobblehead version. Makes the insult that much worse.